Megan Ferland had a dilemma. A longtime donor had given her organization, the Girl Scouts of Western Washington, $100,000 to provide financial assistance for girls to attend summer camp. But in the midst of a wave of national media attention about transgender people last year, the donor’s family sent a letter seeking assurance that the gift would not support transgender girls.
“It was not a hard decision. That’s directly contradictory to how our council works. We knew immediately that the gift would be returned,” Ms. Ferland says. “The trickier part is, how do we go about replacing the six-figure hole in our financial budget in the last quarter of our fiscal year?”
She decided to use the situation to her group’s advantage. After returning the gift, the Girl Scout council publicized the situation and ran a crowdfunding campaign focusing on its commitment to “inclusivity” for all girls, including transgender ones.
“We felt confident we would be able to reach like-minded supporters in our Western Washington community,” Ms. Ferland says.
She did run the risk that other donors would also pull their funding, but that didn’t happen. In fact, the council raised more than $360,000 and received largely positive international media attention.
The experience reinforced how important it is for nonprofits to focus on their priorities, Ms. Ferland says.
“In this case it was, first, we have a hole in our budget that we have to fill if we’re going to be able to provide our opportunities to girls we’re responsible for serving, and, second, we are an inclusive Girl Scout council and we are proud of that,” she says. “Those were completely wedded to each other.”
The problem is not uncommon in the nonprofit world, experts say. While donor and nonprofit priorities of many kinds can clash, the collisions can be particularly explosive when they relate to diversity. Questions about whether and how to recruit board members and employees and provide services to people from diverse backgrounds can put donors and nonprofits at irreconcilable odds.
While Ms. Ferland had no trouble breaking ties with a donor whose values differed from those of her organization, many other nonprofit leaders struggle with those sensitive situations.
You can’t take the money if your values aren’t aligned. It’s not going to work.
“It is painful and miserable to walk away from money,” says Carol Weisman, president of Board Builders and a consultant on nonprofit governance and fundraising. “These are really brutal decisions.”
Although it can be uncomfortable, organizations that defend their missions against pressure from donors are benefiting the nonprofit world as a whole, says Richard Marker, co-principal at Wise Philanthropy, an advisory and education firm, and faculty director for executive education programs at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy.
“One of the unfortunate derivatives of the power imbalance is grantee organizations are scared to death to say no,” Mr. Marker says. “One of the things that would help correct the balance between recipient organizations and funders is when organizations are willing to say, ‘No, that gift or grant is something not acceptable to us.’”
Conversations, Not Confrontations
Ideally, nonprofits should try to avoid those kinds of confrontations by explicitly explaining their missions to potential donors from the start, Ms. Ferland says.
“Our vision statement is that Girl Scouts of Western Washington is for all girls, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ability, etc., to meet their potential to make their world a better place. We start from there, so that they’re very clear,” Ms. Ferland says. “We’re seeking strategic partnerships with corporations or individual donors who want to support Girl Scouts of Western Washington because of who we are and what we do. That’s first and foremost the most important thing.”
No matter how clear a nonprofit’s priorities are, though, it’s still possible that a donor will try to provide or deny money for a reason that doesn’t match the group’s mission. Rather than simply cut ties, the nonprofit first has an “obligation to have a conversation with that person,” says Robert Henry, vice president of education at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
“You can have an intelligent conversation on the issue,” he says.
Those conversations can help both individuals and organizations evolve. Ben Jealous, former head of the NAACP, learned from his experience hiring gay executives at the civil-rights organization that people often mean well regarding diversity but may need time to adapt. When conservative pastors serving on the NAACP board objected to Mr. Jealous’s hiring decisions, he discussed the matter with them.
“I would get questions from folks, board members who were wrestling with the implications of my decisions, who would ask me why I was doing it, and I would say our cause could not be more urgent and neither is our need for top talent.” Mr. Jealous says. “And these were the best people who applied for the job.”
“The important thing is to be direct with folks,” he adds, and make no apologies for trying to hire the top performers.
Allowing people to “feel safe and affirmed” while grappling with their consciences is important, Mr. Jealous says.
“People are complex. We wear multiple hats and live multiple truths,” he says. “I ultimately got folks to focus on truths most relevant to the question at hand.”
Stick to Your Values
Some nonprofit leaders say board members and donors can disagree about a nonprofit’s diversity policies but still support the overall mission.
The Boy Scouts of America, which has dealt with high-profile controversies about its policies on gay participants, provided the following statement in response to a request for an interview:
The Boy Scouts of America has a long history of respecting diverse personal beliefs and treating everyone with courtesy and respect. We fully understand and appreciate that not everyone will agree with any one position or policy, but we believe that good people can personally disagree on a topic and still work together to carry out our mission of providing the nation’s foremost youth character and leadership-development program.
But ultimately, “you have to decide what your values are,” Ms. Weisman says. And if a donor or board member offers a gift that opposes those values, the solution is simple: “You can’t take the money. If your values aren’t aligned, it’s not going to work.”
Mr. Marker agrees. “It’s only appropriate to say no to a gift that is going to have long-term negative implications or force them to change in ways are inappropriate,” he says.
When declining such a donation, Ms. Weisman advises, be civil, remind the donor or board member of common ground, and leave the door open to a future relationship.
“Always part as friends. Always, always, always,” she says. If you can find any points of agreement, “then you have the potential for a future gift.”
Although it’s hard to lose donors, she adds, it’s better to make a clean break than to take a compromising gift and try to conceal it.
After all, as the Girl Scouts of Western Washington showed, adhering to the mission may lead to a short-term loss but a long-term gain.
“Money matters, but the council’s mission matters most. That’s what’s always chief in my head. We can’t raise money if we lose sight” of that, Ms. Ferland says. “If a donor’s intent doesn’t fit the vision of the council, we’re not the right place for that donor to be supporting, and it’s OK for that to be the decision.”